Thursday, March 31, 2011

When mamma gets sick.....

When mamma gets sick.....the kiddos are dressed like this


When mamma gets sick.....the house looks like this (okay this room has looked like this before, but NEVER for this long:)

When mamma gets sick....the family eats this (because the fridge is empty and the cupboards are bare)
When mamma gets sick she actually misses feeling well enough to do all the "mamma stuff"
Ahhh...the things we take for granted:)

Takin' a "Break"

Wanna know the story behind this?

....two weeks ago, we made a trip to Billings for a enjoyable day of shopping. While strolling around World Market, Karsyn became fascinated with the throw pillows which were housed in a rather large heavy metal container/shelf. Somehow...as only Karsyn could...she got her left foot hooked, stuck, jammed under the shelf and as she tripped and pulled her foot free, she "hurt" it. Now she did groan and say "ouch", but that was pretty much it at the time. As the day went on she complained about it and was kind of babying it a bit. Now we consider ourselves pretty attentive, caring parents, but we also are accustomed to our active 8 year old getting bumps and bruises so we didn't see a need to panic right away. We have had too many experiences of rushing to the doc and only to have them smile and tell us we have just made them a couple hundred dollars richer for nothing;) So my husband....aka the doctor...examined the foot and because there was no visible signs of trauma (swelling, bruising, bones poking through the skin) we decided time would heal all wounds..... a little Motrin and a heated rice pack should do the trick......well we were WRONG!!
Fast forward 2 weeks...Karsyn is now limping around continuously, but only complaining about her foot sporadically. She continues to play in PE while limping, and she has even managed to run while limping. We talk to her teacher to let her know that we are not negligent parents, we are aware that her foot is "sore" but are sure it is just a matter of time before she is good as new. We even begin to think that she has just become accustomed to babying the left foot. At this point she will not put her heal down AT ALL and is using the toes for her support and she is complaining about it more frequently. When she mentions that her toes feel "numb" at times and that the soreness is spreading up her calf, we decide (being the good parents that we are;) that maybe its time to take action. On Sunday we have a friendly conversation with a friend of ours who is a Family MD and he says it would be a good idea to have it checked (at this point we have already been looking into Orthopedists).
So we took the earliest appointment, which was today and the results were.....she has a "Type I Salter Harris Fracture of the Calcaneal Physis which has resulted in Plantar Fascitis " OR she has a fracture through the growth plate of her heel. Because it has been too uncomfortable for her to have her heel flat, she has been walking tip toed and this has resulted in inflammation of the fibrous tissue along the bottom of her foot and into her Achilles......oh my!! I have always felt it was just a matter of time with my little Eva Lou....

So now the poor little thing is sportin' a very stylish blue cast and will be on crutches for the next 2 weeks....(and truth be told I think she is kinda loving the whole idea-right now anyway). She has already had us sign her little blue friend and has mapped out how much space she is going to need for all the kids at school to sign it.

The novelty may wear off, but for now we will let her enjoy the ride. It is going to be a rough 2 weeks for a little girl who can't sit still. We kept her home from school the last 2 days to have her stay off of her foot and it drove her crazy....she just keeps saying "what can I do?" She does not like to be immobilized. So I was feeling like a pretty lousy momma for letting it drag out this long. But the good Dr. reassured me that had we brought her in right away, they may have dismissed it as simply soft tissue bruising at the time and had us come back later anyway (fractures in the growth plate can be difficult to detect in X-ray)...so that made me feel a little less lousy. This girl must be pretty tough because I think she really endured more discomfort than she let on.
So she will be taking a brake from a lot of things while she is on the mend. Here's to a peaceful recovery!!

Carpet Crazed

Carpet for the 2 rooms in the basement was installed on Tuesday. Now every room is done except for the bathroom.....YEAH!! Emmrey was so excited for the carpet to come she was a bit "crazed". She asked us everyday if it was "carpet day" and when they came to install it she checked on them every 10 minutes. She filled them in on the fact that one of the rooms was the playroom. I think she was most excited to pull out toys that I had packed away when we cleared out the rooms. When we picked up Bay and Kars, she wanted to surprise them and have them "follow her" to the big reveal. I have to say it made me a little giddy as well. Now we just need closet doors and a few finishing touches and they will be ready to go...Mark has worked so hard and I really appreciate all he has done.

I love love love the smell of new carpet....mmm...and I love how clean a big empty room looks with soft new carpet. I stood in awe for a brief moment and then Emmrey had the playroom filled with every toy she could find. Oh well, that is what it is for anyway!!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Steelhead

Earlier this month Mark skipped town for a few days and headed to Kooskia Idaho to fish for Steelhead on the Clearwater River. This is always a thrill for him and he enjoyed good fishing, scenery and company. He claims that in between hooking these big boys, he missed us terribly....hmm not so sure I believe that:)


We missed him at home, but we did have some fun of our own. I took the girls to see Rango. Pretty cute show, with some impressive animation. I think Emmrey single handedly finished off a (very)large tub of popcorn ....I have never seen a kid devour popcorn quite like that.

We also had a sleepover every night. It's kind of tradition that when Mark is out of town the girls all get to sleep in our room...they have to take turns sleeping in the bed (our bed is just not quite big enough for all of us to fit)

It was a fun few days for all of us, but we are always glad to be back together!!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

You've Got Mail

Emmrey has been a picture making machine lately. While we love her little works of art, it can get out of control. I think she has single handedly destroyed a rain forest. But we are very good recyclers, so I guess that makes up for it;) This is just a sample of a days work (this is just before preschool).



Behind our bedroom door has turned into a little mailbox. Mark and I receive daily deliveries of mail... and I mean bulk mail. It is so handy how she can just slide it right through the space between the hinges and the frame. We are beginning to get buried in our mail, but we love our little mailman:)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Lasso Ladies


We often have days at our house where the girls will just come up with some random thing to play together. This particular Saturday it was cowboys. Karsyn gathered her and Emmrey a plaid shirt, hat and some rope (Emmrey carefully selected the striped Halloween pants and snow boots:) They headed to the ranch and lassoed like nobody's business. Oh how I hope they never outgrow this!!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Rockin' America

Bailee had her Spring choir concert ....Rockin' America. She was one of the Beatles and the program was filled with all different types of songs from every era. It was so good...felt a bit like a Glee episode. Okay, a little different but it made me happy!!!

Feelin' LUCKY

Ever since last St. Patty's, Emmrey has been infatuated with the whole idea of the Leprechaun. So waiting for this day has been a little like Christmas around here. We started making our Leprechaun trap early in the month so we would be prepared. Emmrey even made the little sign all by herself..."Don't climb ladder"(she has turned into quite the little "letter maker"). We awoke earlier than normal to check the trap and see if we had caught the little guy....



...no such luck, but he did leave a little trail of gold throughout the house along with some mischief. That crazy little guy even turned out toilet water green (don't want to think about how, but it was kinda gross:).

We ended the day with our Green Feast and I made me family a lil' goody to go with it.

Hope your day was "pinch free" and filled with green madness. Lucky us...we have these wee little Leprechauns!!



Oh and I just had to add this...a day earlier we woke to find this in the sky. We followed it for a bit trying to find the pot o' gold at the end..but no such luck. It was a full rainbow across the sky. Unfortunately I could not get a wide enough view for the entire thing. The picture doesn't really do it justice..it was pretty spectacular (JUST A DAY TOO SOON:)

Top o the mornin' to ya!!